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XV. International TICCIH Congress 2012 in Taiwan

“Post-colonialism & Re-interpretation of Industrial Heritage”

4 to 11 November 2012

Paper No. S-42, Session III: Interpretation and Application

Tracing the Invisible – Electropolis Berlin

Marion, Steiner

Berlin Center for Industrial Heritage, University of Applied Sciences HTW Berlin

Abstract

The “Berlin Center for Industrial Heritage” (BZI) is a project jointly developed by the University of Applied Sciences Berlin (HTW) and the Foundation of the German Museum for Technology in Berlin (SDTB). Since autumn 2011, the initial budget is provided by a programme to promote the innovative potential of culture in Berlin which is financed by the European Regional Development Fund. The HTW has been engaged in the broad topic of industrial culture for more than 20 years and has developed its own Competence Centre for Regional Industrial Heritage (KRIK) three years ago to arouse public awareness in relation to industrial culture. It was also the KRIK where the idea to found the BZI was born. One of the many missions of the BZI is to develop an intelligent and visionary tourism concept for Berlin’s industrial heritage. Instead of collecting all data and references of all industrial sites in Berlin and then do a selection based on worn-out criteria from existing touristic concepts, we first of all started thinking: What’s special about Berlin’s industrial heritage when compared to other places? What’s the story it stands for in human history? Why should people – and especially younger generations – be at all interested in listening to this story? Which message could be drawn from Berlin’s industrial experience that is useful for the global society of tomorrow? These are the questions that will be answered in the following chapters. Keywords: technological infrastructures, intangible heritage, universal cultural values, scale-jumping in landscape interpretation, regional messages, participative approach

The traditional key regions of industrial heritage in Germany are the Ruhr area and the

Saarland in the west and Lusatia and Saxony in the east of the country. The industrial heritage

movements in all these regions resulted from socially desperate situations: the structural changes –

triggered by the coal and steel crisis in Western Germany in the 1960s and the implosion of the

Contact Author:

Marion STEINER, Coordinator, Berlin Center for Industrial Heritage, University of Applied Sciences HTW Berlin

Postal address: HTW Berlin, FB 5, BZI, 10313 Berlin, Germany

Tel: +49-(0)176-23.23.96.08 (mobile), Fax: +49-(0)30-5019-484301

E-Mail: marion.steiner@htw-berlin.de; private E-Mail: steiner@rhondda.de

Website BZI: www.industrie-kultur-berlin.de

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German Democratic Republic in Eastern Germany in 1990 – led to the collapse of the whole social

system in these regions. The increasing decay and impending demolition of the last witnesses of

the long gone economic heydays were conceived by the regional population as an existential affront

against their own identity. Hence, their fight for preservation has always been a political project and

a fight for social recognition. The German term ‘Industriekultur’1 became internationally known in

the wake of such events as the IBA Emscher Park (Ruhr area 1989-1999) or the IBA See (Lusatia

2000-2010). With this term, a new concept emerged in the 1970s, facilitating a global perspective

on the phenomena of the industrial age. Until today, the term stands for a comprehensive study of

the diverse impacts industrialization has had on human culture, also including a critical

interpretation of present-day processes.2

Next to Saxony, Lusatia, the Ruhr and the Saar, Berlin is currently becoming a new regional

focus for industrial heritage in Germany. However, the social context is fundamentally different.

Even though there are numerous initiatives in Berlin committed to preserve the industrial heritage,

the situation is not as socially desperate as in the traditional industrial regions. Furthermore, it is the

first time that the German research activities on industrial heritage do not focus on an industrialized

region but an industrially defined metropolitan area. Undoubtedly, Berlin can compete with the

traditional industrial regions in terms of unemployment rates, and – almost like samples under a

magnifying glass – the social upheavals following 1990 intensify in Berlin. However, Berlin’s

economic structure is much more diversified than in traditional, mono-structured mining regions,

and being a capital and international metropolis, Berlin offers a large variety of opportunities that

help to establish a positive urban identity.

This becomes particularly clear when we consider the spontaneous connotations that come to

our minds when we think of Berlin: city of subculture, a good place to live even without making much

money, or the city where you can make a living out of your creative work... Klaus Wowereit, mayor

of Berlin, phrased this as “Berlin is poor but sexy.”3 What is completely missing in the city’s public

perception is the topic of industrial heritage. Even if you have a beer in Kulturbrauerei4 you rather

think about the future of the creative workers than about the past of the brewers.

The Electropolis Berlin

From a historic perspective, however, Berlin only developed as an industrial city. Following the

unification of the Deutsche Reich under the supremacy of Prussia in 1871 and the Electric

Revolution that began in 1880, the hitherto provincial Berlin evolved into a rapidly growing city. It

became the focus for administration, lobbyists and banks. Also, the Technical University and the

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outstanding public education system

contributed to the development of the unique

electricity cluster in Berlin. The stakeholders

knew each other well and had excellent

international contacts that proved to be a fertile

ground for technological and social innovations.

The city itself became a laboratory to test and

apply the new technologies. Within just two

decades, Berlin advanced to be temporarily

the biggest metropolis on the European

continent. The booming industries in the

electronics, railway and engineering sectors as

well as the new radio and communication

technologies made industrial and architectural

history around the world. Both the industrial

production and the organisation of urban life

had an enormous hunger for energy. The

public power and water supply infrastructure

as well as the modern transport systems

inspired the whole world. Towards the end of

the 19th century “Electropolis Berlin” became a synonym for the modern, networked city.

It is no wonder that Berlin’s industrial history is present everywhere in the city – you just do not

see it. However, “there is no second place on earth today featuring such a high number of

outstanding monuments related to the electro-technical industry and the supply of electricity” says

Jörg Haspel, Curator for the Preservation of Historical Monuments in Berlin.5 Due to the special

political situation of the two World Wars and then the divided city, which prevented a fundamental

modernisation during the Cold War, an extraordinarily large number of the 120-year-old buildings

still exist today. Many kept their original use and remain in operation – a fact that promises particular

authenticity and integrity. The new World Heritage initiative, currently being pushed forward by

Berlin’s Senate Department for Monuments, would be the first in Berlin to explicitly focus on the

city’s industrial history.

Among the sites considered for nomination are (in chronological order of their construction):

Fig. 1: The power plant Oberspree was built outside

the city centre in 1896/97. It had its own harbour to

improve the supply with coal. It is one of the oldest

three-phase power plants in Europe and still

preserved. (Source: Vattenfall Europe, Historical

Archives, Berlin)

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transformer station Buchhändlerhof in

Mauerstrasse in Mitte (built from

1885-86 as second municipal block

power station in Berlin; today

reused6); power station Oberspree in

Schöneweide (built from 1895-97, Fig.

1); the former AEG Cable Works

Oberspree and AEG transformer

factory in Schöneweide (built

between 1895 and 1929, Fig. 2 and

3); power station Charlottenburg (built

in 1899/1900; operating); AEG

factories in Brunnenstrasse in

Wedding (built between 1906 and 1913; reused after closedown in the 1980s); dynamo hall in

Siemensstadt (built in 1906 and expanded until 1942; operating); AEG turbine hall in Huttenstrasse

in Moabit (built in 1909; operating, Fig. 4); Siemensforum with Siemens headquarter (built from

1910-13, expanded in 1922 and from 1929-30); switchgear skyscraper and switchgear halls in

Siemensstadt (built from 1926-28, 1916, 1921/22 and 1927/28; operating); power station

Klingenberg in Lichtenberg (built from 1925-26; operating). In order to emphasise the grid character

of the Electropolis as an industrial

cityscape, it is planned to include also

the electrification of the metropolitan

transport systems.7

The importance of the

architectural and technical sites of the

Electropolis Berlin was already

recognized on both sides of the wall in

the post-WWII time. After the fall of the

Berlin Wall, the city’s conservation

authorities cooperated with the

industry to create concepts for the

development and preservation of the

Fig. 2: Berlin’s forgotten past as an industrial metropolis is what

the current World Heritage initiative wants to bring back to

people’s minds. This aerial view from 1928 shows the AEG

Cable Works in Schöneweide. (Source: SDTB, AEG archives)

Fig. 3: Some parts of the former AEG premises in Schöne-

weide reopened as the HTW’s second university campus when

restoration finished in October 2009. The core area of the cable

factory is still operating; the reuse of the remaining areas is

currently under discussion. (Source: HTW Berlin)

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Electropolis’ buildings. One example is the

“Preservation Conception for Siemensstadt”8; similar

concepts were developed in co-operation with the

energy supplier Vattenfall Europe, the former

BEWAG.9 Today, some 20 years after the fall of the

wall, the economic situation in Berlin seems to have

normalised and the city is striving for

re-industrialisation. This new pressure to develop

economically is increased by Germany’s extreme

dependency on exports and its commitment to

compete on the global markets. Regulations regarding the conservation of monuments and hitherto

existing agreements are increasingly called into question. In addition, all activities regarding the

protection of monuments suffer from the disastrous financial situation of the public sector and the

extreme downsizing of state agencies in recent years. The companies, on the other hand, lament

the shortage of junior employees and a lacking public interest in a vivid industry in Berlin.

The “invisible” Electropolis

So far, analysis in the context of the World Heritage initiative has focussed on the morphology,

the visible, the “physical landscape”. The “mental landscape” and the intangible heritage of the

Electropolis Berlin were only partially considered.10 This subject seems indeed to be as elusive as

electricity itself: it is around us, but it remains invisible. We cannot smell it, and we cannot touch it.

Electricity is not a material, but a medium; no resource, but a technological infrastructure. It eludes

our senses – nevertheless it is the “fifth” element and of substantial importance for our everyday

lives. In a certain way electricity can also be seen as a metaphor for Berlin: the city is fascinating

and inspiring and has the power to attract people. Berlin is electrifying – and the electric shock

might stimulate us or might result in overkill, a nervous breakdown.

The presence of technological infrastructure is generally hard to trace in the cityscape; this

applies in particular to the supply infrastructure for electricity. All cables in Berlin were laid

underground right from the beginning. How electricity is produced and distributed, how it arrives in

our sockets at home is something that most inhabitants are unaware of. Also, most buildings that

are connected to this infrastructure remain invisible in the cityscape. The Berlin transformer stations

dating from around 1900 are a good example: they were integrated into the street fronts, their

façades were designed as normal office or residential buildings so that their technological functions

Fig. 4: The AEG turbine hall in Huttenstrasse

in Moabit was erected in 1909 and was listed

as a monument as early as in 1956. It is still

operating today. (Copyright: Deutsche

Bundespost Berlin, stamp from 1987)

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remain concealed until today (Fig. 5). However,

there is still another “invisibility” that makes it

difficult to reflect about the intangible heritage of

the Electropolis Berlin: the decentralised layout

of the city. With the rapid growth that began in

the 1880s the factories abandoned the city

centre. New industrial towns, such as

Siemensstadt and Schöneweide, or new

industrial areas, as in Moabit and Wedding, were

built outside the city gates, each of them offering

thousands of jobs (Fig. 6). Since the foundation

of Great Berlin in 1920, these key areas of the

Electropolis are a part of the Berlin municipality.

In the collective perception, however, this

periphery of the city was widely ignored and still

is ignored today. And also the city’s living

industries – even though they still exist today –

are left unnoticed and do not raise the

awareness of most Berliners.

This assumed invisibility is in stark contrast

to the intensity by which electrification radically

and globally changed the way how people lived

together in the last 120 years. The wide-spread

availability of electricity has produced a new

quality of life over the years, which today – at

least in Western Europe – is so much taken for

granted that we only notice this fact when we

have to face occasional power cuts. Being an

integral part of the services of public interest, the

nation-wide power supply is considered an essential, social and cultural value in Germany, while

other parts of the world are striving to reach this goal in their development. Whereas the

civilisation’s achievements of electrification are generally welcomed today, there is harsh criticism

Fig. 5: The transformer station in Wilhemshavener

Strasse, built in 1900/01, was one of the first of its

type in Berlin. The technical purpose of the building

is difficult to recognise for the layman. (Source:

Vattenfall Europe, Historical Archives, Berlin)

Fig. 6: Franz Skarbina’s painting, View across the

Railway in the North of Berlin, dating from 1895,

shows how industry settled outside the commuter

train ring of Berlin. (Source: Stadtmuseum Berlin)

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against the technological-cultural system of

regulation which evolved from the provision of

conventional electricity: waste of electric power,

electro smog, “loss of the night”, monopoly

economy, non-transparent pricing, the unfair way

how labour is divided internationally etc. One issue

raised during the current structural conflict

between conventional and renewable energies is

how the system of conventional power supply

once developed, how it could be implemented

worldwide and how it is affecting our lives.

Analysing and reviewing the Electric Revolution

120 years ago may also be helpful in finding

reasonable solutions to meet the challenges of the

global structural changes taking place at the

moment – and when to be alert.

Landscapes of Power

Technology itself has no intrinsic logic. The

construction of technological systems is governed

by the interests and intentions of certain stakeholders. In order to be accepted by society,

technological inventions require important political decisions and a cultural context to promote such

ideas. Technological systems use space; they create characteristic structures and hierarchies. The

contemporary perspective during the Electric Revolution held the view that large technological

systems could solve many social problems. This position was already reflected in the euphoria

enthusing about the use of steam engines and railways during the first industrial revolution and

gained more and more momentum during the electrification and the second industrial revolution.

Today, we are aware of the environmental, social, and cultural “side effects” in the use of large-scale

technologies. The current zeitgeist tends to favour decentralised solutions as they seem more

human and feasible – and their possible impacts seem to be better manageable.

The history of the Electropolis Berlin shows that the construction of systems to supply

electricity in large areas was always accompanied by the conflict between private companies and

society at large, which could not be solved until today. Despite this fact, it was the idea to create

Fig. 7: Public energy supply in Germany can be

traced back to Emil Rathenau’s presentation of

electric lighting in a luxury Berlin restaurant in

1882. Despite some technical problems

backstage (the picture shows him cooling the

dynamo) he succeeded in convincing the city’s

most important stakeholders about the

advantages of electricity. (Source: Vattenfall

Europe, Historical Archives, Berlin)

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something for the benefit of all that motivated the

municipal protagonists who negotiated the

development of electricity grids with private

enterprises. The bosses of these companies,

which later became large energy corporations,

were fully aware of the accumulation

opportunities and actively promoted the creation

of new markets (Fig. 7). The generation of power

developed from “small scale, isolated operations

consisting of only a few participants to a

phenomenon covering wide areas.”11 The central

power plants for Berlin were built outside the city

centre near the water and had their own harbours

to improve the supply with huge amounts of coal.

The power station Oberspree (Fig. 1) is the first example of this development in Berlin. Once the

street lights and the first trams were electrified, it only took a few decades to connect almost all

households to the electricity grid.12 More and more electric appliances were invented and their

marketing was massively promoted in public places (Fig. 8). But electricity also empowered

completely new applications for entertainment and e.g. paved the way for the film and music

industries.

Since the beginning, the electrical power industries were dominated by powerful monopolies.

The Berlin giants Siemens and AEG (Fig. 9) prevailed on the German market; in “coopetition” with

the US corporations General Electric and Westinghouse, they dominated the global market around

1900, concluded agreements to protect their home markets and to divide up the rest of the world.

The Berlin banks were involved in these activities right from the start as they were needed to

pre-finance the capital intensive building of the facilities. Power plant technology and tram systems

were exported to the whole world. Within a few decades, Berlin became a metropolis and Germany

an export nation. Even in times when the state intended to exercise more control, it was unable to

find a compromise between the economic interests of industry and the overall interests of society.

This deadlock remains unsolved until today.13

Almost “in the shadow of light”, an energy system emerged that made the consumers

unilaterally dependent on a centralised and monopolistically organised electric power industry

Fig. 8: Electric appliances quickly became a status

symbol of modern times. New application

technologies, in particular for domestic use, were

promoted by massive marketing campaigns in the

public space. Photography taken in 1931. (Source:

Vattenfall Europe, Historical Archives, Berlin)

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operating globally. Consumer resistance to this

regulation system began with the activities of only

a few persons who withdrew from the

conventional energy supply by producing their

own electricity. Co-operatives set up the first wind

wheels, solar panels were installed on the roofs,

people tried to save energy – what had started

with single actions turned into a broadening

social movement and promoted the development

of alternative technologies. The structural conflict

became obvious. Today, renewable energies

leverage a social vision that is seeking forms of

global energy supply which are more ecological

and more democratic. Maybe this time – with the

second attempt – we succeed in making our

electricity supply more sustainable. However, we

should not only focus on environmental aspects,

but should particularly consider how existing

international power structures and the global

division of labour can be regulated with greater

justice.14

Tracing the Invisible

The BZI sees the Electropolis Berlin as a historically grown functional arrangement and a

cultural system. The key question is that of the universal cultural value: Which lessons can be

learned from Berlin’s industrial past as Electropolis that are useful for our time? Our interpretation

comprises a critical discussion of current questions and includes a socio-political and a

post-colonial message. Our aim is to encourage public reflection on how a global perspective of

human development can help to rethink the energy supply of the future and to make its distribution

more just, and we think this would in fact be an extremely worthwhile contribution of Berlin’s

industrial heritage on our way to the global society.

The BZI develops a grid of prototypical theme routes leading across the city that give

testimony to the past and present of the industrial metropolis of Berlin. Existing tours will be aligned

Fig. 9: Company brand of the Allgemeine

Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) dating from 1888.

(Source: SDTB, AEG archives)

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and integrated into a consistent concept. Our aim is to obtain a connotative overall impression of the

industrial metropolis, so that the Electropolis Berlin can be interpreted across time, space and

generations as a system that goes far beyond the city’s limits. We want to pull Berlin out of today’s

dominating connotations as a cultural metropolis, demonstrate how its powerful electricity industries

contributed in a specific way to the development of today’s global “networks of power” and make the

particular spatial-functional interconnectedness of the Electropolis Berlin visible and

understandable.

For this purpose, it seems appropriate to simultaneously think in two directions: from the city

centre to the outside - and then back again from the periphery to the inside. Inside the Electropolis

innovations were created, and the young capital and emerging metropolis Berlin outshined the rest

of the nation. The province turned into a resource for material and people – and the world became

the market. The Electropolis Berlin, as an economic, political, cultural and functional unit, cannot be

reduced to its centre, but must

encompass the supposedly “invisible”

periphery and all international relations. A

new conception of the Electropolis should

widen our understanding of culture to

cross today’s regional and national

boundaries. This approach opens new

potentials of interpretation aiming at

Silesia, Saxony or the Ruhr area – and

overseas. And it would reveal the division

of labour between the regions which still exists today. In addition, the global understanding of these

interregional and transnational relations could serve as good basis for developing specific content

profiles and messages for each industrial region in the world.

The BZI proposes ten thematic routes to approach the particular profile of the Electropolis

Berlin, its “spirit of place”, from a global perspective. Each route addresses social questions that

shape a time loop engulfing past, presence and future. The current situation can be the starting or

end point and invites participants to talk from generation to generation or from region to region.

Competing points of view are confronted with each other.

1. The Networked City (Myth of Electropolis): Water, gas, electricity, transport and radio

networks as urban root systems. The role of electricity for traffic and communication. The internet.

Fig. 10: Ludwig Sütterlin, picture of the "Goddess of Light"

with idealised landscape in the background. Issued 1897 in

the anniversary publication "The Berlin Electricity Works

Until the End of 1896. Planned and Built by the Allgemeine

Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft." (Source: Vattenfall Europe,

Historical Archives, Berlin)

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Access points, nodes and control points in the network. Urban quality of life and consumer

autonomy.

2. Beyond the Socket: The whole chain of conventional electricity supply: source, delivery of

raw materials, power plants, transformer stations, cable networks, different types of consumers.

New energy sources (biomass, wind, solar, domestic waste etc.) and their exploration.

3. Landscapes of Power: From early isolated operations to the network system. The electric

isolation of West Berlin after 1952, the network system in Western Europe and the former Eastern

Bloc, energy reunification after 1994. Outlook on new energy landscapes: new sources, new

networks. (Fig. 10)

4. Urban Hygiene: Water supply and waste water, sewage treatment plants, drain fields,

public baths, delousing and disinfection facilities, emigration of manufacturing industries, hospitals

for epidemics and graveyards outside the city, living in the green outskirts (Berlin Modern Housing

Estates).

5. Industrious Berlin: Manufacturing and creative industries. Old factories still operating,

creative reuses and new industries (fashion, design, music etc.). Creative clusters in the past and

today. Marketing slogans praising Berlin as industrial hub today and 120 years ago.

6. Everyday Life and Dying: Mansions, tenements, applied electric technology, household

appliances, department stores, market halls, food industry, breweries, leisure facilities, social

housing. Typical diseases, large-sized hospitals, insane asylums, madhouses, graveyards, graves.

7. Urban Mining: Use of resources, origin of reusable waste, waste as a resource, mining in

the city, waste collection and management. Green tech. Life cycle of products and criticism of the

throwaway society. Dumpsites, mountains of rubble, incineration plants.

8. The Music Industry: Hand-made music, electrification of music. Instruments, compositions,

recordings, the juke box. Today's music industry, Technopolis Berlin, independent scene, working

conditions and funding, controversy over copyrights in the internet.

9. Made in Germany: Export nation, trade and banks (Deutsche Bank etc.), international

financial market, imported and exported products, German companies on the global market,

international relations, development aid, German export model.

10. Operation and Administration: Cycles and processes, logistics and organisation. Transit

periods and temporary residence. Computerisation of industrial production, just in time

management, central server rooms, emergency services. Forced labour and mass extermination.

These ten theme routes will be developed in co-operation with professional tourism providers

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who know Berlin’s industrial heritage and are experienced in using new, interactive ways to present

information. It is planned to co-operate with additional social actors for each route. The BZI routes

will be available as virtual routes displayed on a virtual map on the internet and will be marketed as

a package. However, the BZI will not act as a tourism provider. Our aim is to help existing providers

to increase visibility and their economic potentials by providing an intelligent and consistent

conception and overall marketing – we consider ourselves as their partners and not as their

competitors.

The BZI deliberately breaks with traditional tourism expectations. We concentrate on "insider

tips" for those who lived in Berlin for a long time and those who just have arrived, and who wish to

see the city through different eyes. For us, it is most important to find places where you can strike up

a conversation with other people about urban and social developments and the "spirit of place" of

the Electropolis Berlin. The BZI will develop new criteria, and to be considered for one of the main

routes, a site needs to fulfil at least one of the following requirements: 1) Representativeness and

Density: these places are very representative for a theme route and/or showcase a high density of

various topics; 2) Explorer potential: there are unexpected things to discover at these places.

Hidden treasures; urban exploration; 3) Complexity of meanings of place: the simultaneity of the

non-simultaneous is very high at this place. The lost, the never-built and the newly emerging; 4)

Meeting places: you can meet contemporary witnesses, activists and/or visionaries here who tell

stories about the place’s historic and/or future development; 5) Living the change: locals

continuously inform about their progressing work on the internet or by e-mail; interested persons

can participate in some of the work.

Network strategy: Organising public interest

The BZI sees itself as an open platform for social communication about the old and the newly

emerging industrial heritage of Berlin. Our aim is to organise a joint interpretation process of the

Electropolis Berlin and to raise public interest in the city's industrial past and present. It is the BZI's

intention to stimulate the exchange and to increase and create new networks between stakeholders,

institutions and initiatives who are engaged in Berlin's industrial heritage. Diversity plays a major

role in what we do. We co-operate with partners coming from various social and public areas such

as monument protection, urban development, industrial and economic policy, museums and

archives, non-profit associations, real estate agents, owners and investors, universities and

marketing agencies.

In addition, there are various creative communities who use public spaces, the internet or new

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media (e.g. games15 or geocaching) to communicate about industrial heritage and the close links

between technology and culture. Undoubtedly, they are also story tellers and as such they are

important stakeholders in the process to interpret the Electropolis Berlin. The involvement of these

creative communities, however, is a novelty in Germany’s discourse about industrial heritage and it

requires new ways of thinking. Classic participation models do not seem to fit in this case because

they often are drafted as unilateral models by public administration, are too inflexible and do not

offer much artistic freedom. For this reason, the BZI prefers the term "Interaction" to "Participation"

because we hold the view that meaningful analytical content can only be found jointly, and we are

looking for ways to design this public interpretation process openly and with pleasure.

The BZI brings together the various and sometimes contradictory views of different

stakeholders by creating global and integrative topics for the theme routes. It is a major concern of

the BZI to comply with everybody's right to interpret things differently, even though this can be a

complex challenge. The fact that the BZI was founded by academic institutions is a great advantage

because it allows us to work independently and in depth. And even though the stakeholders

currently do not share the same values, there is at least one bridging interest: they all are seeking

for their cultural roots in Berlin’s industrial story (for different reasons of course) and hope to obtain

some added value for their own work by actively participating in the network.

Furthermore, tourism is a worthy topic when it comes to building a heterogeneous network, as

tourism today is generally understood as a marketing strategy, and marketing is something all

groups of stakeholders are somehow interested in. The BZI, however, appreciates tourism in

particular as an interactive tool for landscape interpretation – as a collaborative analysis that helps

to communicate and implement values. The theoretical reflection on what tourism is and can do for

society has not yet been developed further by academics, but to us it looks fundamental when it

comes to develop and implement a touristic concept. In this sense, we see the BZI also as an

academic experiment put to practice. We work on content, and we play with contents, with different

and sometimes opposing contents, looking for messages that are useful on our way to the global

society.

Open Roads

One great advantage of not having focussed on industrial heritage in Berlin before is that

there is still an array of possible interpretations. Being aware of previous models and traditions but

acting independently, we have the great opportunity to develop new contents and messages and

new types of storytelling, and to interact with new groups in our society. Due to the particular cultural

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milieu in Berlin, this might also be the first opportunity to highlight the reasons that contribute to the

fascination we have with industrial heritage: it is the reflection about unsolved complex questions

we have as persons and which are inherently human. In this new and enlightening sense, we could

understand the unfulfilled promise of paradise on earth not as an imposition but as a mental-cultural

liberation from worn-out patterns of thought.

And just as some artists did in the 1920s and 1930s when they created the term

“Electropolis”,16 we can give birth today to new utopian narratives about the electric city and the

global society of the future. However, this requires a high degree of curiosity and open-mindedness

including the willingness to give up certainties believed to be true as well as the ability to come to

terms with ambivalences and to uphold fairness. The BZI wants to motivate everybody to join this

journey into the unknown – as we are convinced it will be really worth it.

Endnotes

1 The term Industriearchäologie could not prevail in German, partially due to a language problem.

Facilitating a much broader understanding of the industrialized society, the concept of

Industriekultur proved to be more useful in the German context. For details see Helmuth Albrecht,

“Zum Verhältnis von Industriearchäologie, Industriekultur und Industriedenkmalpflege in

Deutschland“, Schriftenreihe der Georg-Agricola-Gesellschaft No. 34 (2011): 22-23. 2 Interestingly, the theoretical debates in the Federal Republic of Germany from which the new

concept Industriekultur the emerged, have also been inspired by ideas from the German

Democratic Republic. For details on how industrial heritage developed as a new discipline in both

German states see Marion Steiner, “Industrial Heritage in Germany” (in English), Patrimonio

Industriale: Rivista Semestrale dell’Associazione Italiana per il Patrimonio Archeologico Industriale No.

8 (2011); and Helmuth Albrecht, “Zum Verhältnis von…” (full details see endnote No. 1): 15-30. 3 The mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, used this slogan for the first time in 2003 and continued using it

as some sort of personal motto during subsequent election campaigns. Nowadays, the slogan can

be found on various merchandising products such as bags and pouches for Berlin tourists. 4 A former brewery that was renovated and now houses clubs, pubs, a cinema and a theatre. 5 Jörg Haspel and Hubert Staroste, “Das Erbe der Elektropolis Berlin“, ICOMOS Journals of the

German National Committee No. LI (51) (2011): 74 (original quotation in German). 6 Between 1993 and 1997 this former source of power for the Electropolis became a new source of

innovations: the "E-Werk" was one of Berlin’s hippest techno clubs and had global influence on the

emerging techno scene. Today, it is an event centre and office building. 7 For more detailed information on the World Heritage initiative see Jörg Haspel and Hubert Staroste,

“Elektropolis Berlin – Erbe von Weltrang“, industrie-kultur No. 03 (2011): 28-30; and Jörg Haspel and

Hubert Staroste, “Das Erbe der Elektropolis Berlin“, ICOMOS Journals of the German National

Committee No. LI (51) (2011): 74-78. 8 See Wolfgang Schäche (ed.), Denkmalschutzkonzeption Siemensstadt, Vol. 1: Industriegebäude,

Vol. 2: Wohnsiedlungen (Berlin: Konopka, 1994 and 1995).

15

9 See Jörg Haspel and Hubert Staroste, “Elektropolis Berlin – Erbe von Weltrang“, industrie-kultur No.

03 (2011): 30; and Jörg Haspel and Hubert Staroste, “Das Erbe der Elektropolis Berlin“, ICOMOS

Journals of the German National Committee No. LI (51) (2011): 78. 10 A first expansion was made by Thorsten Dame in Elektropolis Berlin. Die Energie der Großstadt

(Berlin, Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2011). Dame explains e.g. how the term "Elektropolis" originates in

utopian narratives from the 1920s and 1930s and describes the network of stakeholders that was

essential for Berlin's way to become a metropolis. 11 Axel Föhl, “Bauten der Industrie und Technik“, Schriftenreihe des Deutschen Nationalkomitees für

Denkmalschutz No. 47 (1995): 105 (original quotation in German). In the beginning, electricity was

generated in block power stations, later in power stations and finally in central power plants. The

various steps in this technological development can be seen in Berlin at various original sites. 12 In 1914 5% were connected, 25% in 1925, and by 1938 this number had increased to 92%. See Jörg

Haspel, “Elektropolis – das Erbe der elektrotechnischen Industrie und der Stromversorgung,“ in

Denkmalpflege und Gesellschaft, Detlef Karg zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Thomas Drachenberg

(Rostock: Hinstorff, 2010): 114. 13 Günter Karweina described the situation in Germany in Der Stromstaat. Stern-Buch-Report

(Hamburg: Gruner und Jahr, 1984); for the situation in Europe, see Peter Becker, Aufstieg und Krise

der deutschen Stromkonzerne: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung des Energierechts (Bochum:

Ponte Press Verlags GmbH, 2011). 14 In his latest book, published before his death, the German economist and social scientist,

Hermann Scheer, winner of the alternative Nobel prize in 1999, proved how the complete switch to

renewable energies can be realised in a decentralised and cost-effective way and how even the

periphery and developing countries can be supplied with electricity; Hermann Scheer, Der

energethische Imperativ: 100% jetzt. Wie der vollständige Wechsel zu erneuerbaren Energien zu

realisieren ist (München: Kunstmann, 2010). 15 See for example http://amanita-design.net/samorost-1. 16 Examples are given by Thorsten Dame, Elektropolis Berlin. Die Energie der Großstadt (Berlin, Gebr.

Mann Verlag, 2011): 24-30. One is Erich Kästner’s novel The 35th of May, or Conrad’s Ride to the South

Seas, first published in 1931 (original language: German).